What does Mufti know about Israel

Published on: 2014-09-28 @ 21:15

What does Mufti know about Israel

It is difficult to determine which vice is worse – ignorance, slander or lie. But they are all equally can not, should not be a characteristic of a priest. A priest is not only a catechist but also a spiritual mentor of the community. The san obliges to be aware of what you say. To be, if not crystal honest but at least competent in the statements, especially public statements. Although anyone can make mistakes, even the one with a dignity.

Recently, Moscow has been hosting the Majlis-Congress of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the European part of Russia. The head of this esteemed organization, Mufti Sheikh Ravil Gaynutdin in his report, inter alia, gave his original estimate of the next round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict – “Operation Enduring Rock” against the terrorists of Gaza.

According to him, it was “an attack on the mostly innocent civilians – children, women, old men.” “The good part of the world community – he says – felt that Israel is at war not with Hamas as declared on the official level, but with the Palestinians as a nation, as a number of Israeli politicians stated. The death of entire families of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip resembles a policy of extermination of Jews during the Second World War.”

Unlike Mufti Gaynutdin, I know any Israeli politician having stated that Israel is at war “not with Hamas but the Palestinians as a nation.” All is exactly opposite. At all levels, including in the public statements of politicians, Israel does emphasize that it is fighting with terrorists and not with the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, which Hamas uses as hostages and “human shields.”

And this is not a mere declaration. It was the Israeli army, the IDF, which did everything possible to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza, and mainly Hamas sought to increase the number of these victims.
It is mainly the terrorists who deploy launchers, missiles and explosives depots and command posts in homes, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, mosques, UN agencies and fire at innocent Israeli towns and villages. IDF is the only army in the world that forewarns the population of an enemy before air strikes through leaflets, SMS, phone calls and noise missiles. Prior to the attack, the Israeli army urged residents who fell into the war zone to evacuate.

And it was terrorists who drove people back, locked them in homes, brought on the roofs during air raids. Published and documented (!) are issues where militants chained children to windows of the buildings scheduled to attacks and used children to lure soldiers into mine traps where not only the Israeli military died but also the Palestinian children who performed the role of a bait.

Is it known to the Mufti that every army’s attack in a densely populated areas of Gaza was carried out only with the authorization of military lawyers, that in case of an obvious danger to civilians, the orders even on targeted killings of leaders of terror were cancelled? This courtesy, unprecedented for the warring armies, deprived the attacking side of effect of surprise, allowed the militants to flee or prepare an ambush which cost the lives of many Israeli soldiers, but it was not abandoned until the end of the operation.

And all this resembles the Mufti a “deliberate murder of Jews during the Second World War?” Exactly this way that the Nazis did?
Is it known to the Mufti what was the reason for the outbreak of the conflict that led, eventually, to the “Operation Enduring rock”? I can recall him. It all began with the kidnapping and murder by Hamas terrorists of three Israeli teenagers in the Hebron area. In the course of their search (for a long time unsuccessful – it is only recently that the killers were found and destroyed), the Israeli army and security forces have opened the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank – and in response, Hamas began to fire rockets onto civilian towns and villages in Israel from the Gaza Strip.
It was terrorists who deliberately tried to cause the largest possible number of victims among the civilian population of Israel. And in response to these attacks, to stop the rocket shelling and attempted terrorist attacks on border villages through tunnels dug from Gaza, the “Operation Enduring rock” was undertaken.

The peaceful life of the whole Israel was troubled for more than 50 days. People were forced to hide in shelters during air-raid signals. Children were deprived of vacation. The country has a multibillion-dollar economic loss. A large number of victims managed to escape only through a perfect defence system “Iron Dome.”

If, according to the Mufti, Israel really behaved like Nazis during the World War II and sought to destroy the Palestinians as a nation, how long it would take “one of the most advanced armies in the region” (in the words of Gaynutdin) to eliminate the hotbed threat in the bud? Hours or minutes?

Simple logic dictates that respected Mufti is untenable in his heavy accusations, to put it mildly. But since we are talking about a cleric, a head of respectable Muslim organization in Russia, I do not even have the right to suspect him of ignorance, slander and deliberate lies. I prefer to assume that he’s just not familiar enough with the situation, with specific facts.

I suggest Mufti Gaynutdin come to us – in a neighbour’s mode for a cup of tea. In conversation with us, our experts, on the history of Jews and the Holocaust, Zionism and Israel, he will be able to learn more about the Jewish country, which, as is evident from his speech, he does not know and therefore enjoys long refuted myths about it, drawn from the anti-Semitic literature – whether Soviet, or Arab, or Turkish.

We value good relations with the Muslims of Russia. And therefore we are willing to arrange one of their leaders – Mufti Gaynutdin and his colleagues – a trip to Israel.
Let him see this country with his own eyes. We will arrange a meeting with representatives of the Israeli army, lawyers, politicians, Israeli Muslims – offsprings from the former Soviet Union and the natives of the Holy Land – Circassians and Arabs, who do not just live better and freer than their co-religionists in the Muslim world, but also participate in life including political, of the Jewish state.
Perhaps this trip and these acquaintances will relieve the respected Mufti from delusions of which he became a voluntary or involuntary promoter. If this is really a delusion. It is treated with knowledge. The rest is not treated at all.